After undergoing a stem-cell transplant that she hopes will save her life, Austen Everett would love nothing more than to turn her attention to soccer this weekend in Seattle.

Everett, a former University of Miami goalkeeper, hopes to feel strong enough to be watching from afar, if her boyfriend Matt Luzunaris gets his first Major League Soccer start Saturday when the Earthquakes play host to the Columbus Crew.

“Austen would love to be out here, and that’s what gets me going,” said Luzunaris, a 22-year-old rookie from South Florida. “Austen inspires me to do better day in and day out.”

They met on Facebook in 2009 when Luzunaris contacted Everett after reading about her inspirational return to collegiate soccer from an earlier bout with cancer. The story resonated with him.

Luzunaris’ brother Sean died of a rare, incurable childhood cancer in 2001 at age 16. Matt was only 12.

“I never dealt with a lot of things back then,” Luzunaris said.

The striker, who played alongside future American star Jozy Altidore much of his childhood, had been playing professionally in Austria when he reached out to Everett to share in her grief. It didn’t take long for a romance to blossom despite the distance.

“It was like I had already known him,” Everett said. “Some of these huge challenges can turn into some of the beautiful parts of our lives.”

Budding romance

A year and a half ago Luzunaris put a budding career on hold to return to Florida to be with Everett. He worked part time at a Miami hat chain so he could continue training to get the attention of an MLS team. Everett, with degrees in communications and political science, worked double shifts at a clothing boutique so the couple could pay their bills.

But two days before the new year, Everett felt ill. Luzunaris took her to a Miami hospital with a temperature of 104 degrees and the kind of back pain she had experienced three years earlier when suffering from stage IV non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

It didn’t take physicians long to confirm the worst. Another tumor would have to be removed. More rounds of intensive chemotherapy would have to be endured to combat the return of cancer.

The emotions welled up inside Luzunaris that afternoon as he sat in his car while Everett informed her bosses at the boutique that she had to quit and move to Seattle to be closer to family.

The broad-shouldered, 6-foot-1 goal scorer cried. Luzunaris had already lost a brother to cancer a decade earlier. Now he feared it would take the woman he loved too.

Since that day, Luzunaris has been Everett’s rock, throwing himself into cancer research to shield her from the gruesome details of the treatments to allow her to focus on recovering.

The couple hopes Everett’s immune system rebounds as the stem-cell graft takes hold in the coming months.

“Cancer has been really difficult,” Everett said before the stem-cell transplant.

But, she quickly added, “I would never want to imagine my life without it.”

The disease has forced her to focus on what really matters in life: happiness.

“Everybody has their own thing they’ve got to deal with it,” she said. “This is mine.”

It also has become that of her favorite San Jose Earthquakes player. Luzunaris recently returned to training after suffering a hip flexor muscle strain; he doesn’t expect to play Wednesday night against the Vancouver Whitecaps, but said he has been told that Saturday is a possibility. The Earthquakes signed him after he scored two goals during a winter tryout.

Since then Everett has been glued to her computer screen on Saturdays hoping to see Luzunaris, who made his MLS debut April 9.

“When I was playing, I don’t remember getting so nervous,” Everett said.

Growing optimism

Although her boyfriend faces a steep challenge to become an MLS regular, just his signing with the Earthquakes has brought optimism.

The player has volunteered to participate in the club’s community events, recently visiting the cancer ward at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University.

The visit dovetails with the couple’s plan to launch a cancer foundation when Everett relocates to San Jose — by July, if her recovery goes well. (She said the cure rate is 60 percent).

“Because of him I have something to look forward to — a whole new life in San Jose,” Everett added.

The new life could get a boost Saturday, particularly if Luzunaris gets his first start. If he does, the significance will go well beyond soccer for the rookie.

Elliott Almond is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group who has covered 11 Olympics, follows soccer and writes about social issues in sports such as concussions. Almond previously worked at the Los Angeles Times and Seattle Times as an investigative sports reporter and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. An author of a book on surfing, Almond spent a good portion of his youth travelling the California and Baja California coastlines searching for the perfect wave. He now can be found among towering coast redwoods in remote NorCal forests.

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